Modern Theater

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Modern Theater
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Oh the Drama!

• Modern drama, like modern painting and other
  forms of modern art, developed not in the
  twentieth century, but during the 19th century
• Modern theater was born out of a widespread
  reaction against the subject matters, forms, and
  methods of staging that had prevailed in many
  18th century and early 19th plays.

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• Largely plays from this era are missing the
  romantic melodrama or neoclassical tragedy.
• Rather a new form of theater was coming about.

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Realism

• Reality in turn became a watchword among early
  modern dramatists, actors, directors, and set
  designers.
• Realism in its most literal sense developed out
  of a desire to bring the stage into greater
  conformity with the surface details or ordinary
  human experience.

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The illusion of 3D

• To create the illusion of a three-dimensional
  interior, nineteenth century set designers
  devised a set compose of flats arranged to form
  connected walls enclosing three sides of the
  stage with the fourth wall removed so that the
  audience could look into a stage room that
  spatially seemed just like a real one. The
  realistic illusion of this stage design is known
  as Box Set

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New advances

• With box sets came movable windows and doors

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• Interior walls of the set were decorated and hung
  with fixtures

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• Lighting changed with the advent of gaslights as
  well as oil lights which could show the illusion
  of sunlight or moonlight

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• False thickness which made the sets appear to
  have more depth then they may really have.

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Theater still follows the same story structure
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Stage terminology

• Blocking - Blocking is the movement that the
  director gives the actors. The director blocks
  the play or tells the actors where to move when
  he is directing.
• Upstage Toward or on the rear part of the stage
• Downstage The Portion of the acting area
  nearest the audience
• Stage Left The part of the stage on the actors
  left as the actor faces the audience
• Stage Right The part of the stage on the
  actors right as the actor faces the audience.

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